Ate It Anyway

Burt Osborne Rules the World

burt osborne rules the world All day long, on that day in the sixth grade when my life changed forever and the world became a better place, everything had been smelling and tasting like overcooked eggs.I wasn't sick exactly; it was more that I was no longer friends with the taste of food. Through the last abbreviated class periods and the final rehearsals for the annual St. Vitus AcademyChristmas pageant, I smelled eggs everywhere,hard and cheesy on people's breath, tasted them in the green-sprinkled Christmas tree cookies they gave us, in the red lipstick that Mrs. Carmodyput on everybody's mouth. Outside, the darkness layflatagainst the windows, which I had never before looked out of at night; indoors, everything seemed soaked in yellow dye. 66 The egg smell grew stronger. I could smell it in the not very clean fabric of my three kings burnoose with the constructionpaper crown fitted over the hood. The air on the stage was thick with the smell as westood waiting for the curtain to open; when it did, the lights were so bright that wecould not seethe slanted audience from which handclapping cascaded like the sound of water down a wide rapid. And it came to pass that Jimmy Taurozzi and Ursula Byatt walked from inn to cardboard inn under multicolored floodlights that threw everybody's shadow in three directions, with little overlapping rainbows around the edges. How slowly the Holy Family moved,Jimmywith his long shepherd's crookin one hand, his other arm around Ursula. Even the innkeepers, shaking their heads to say"No room," seemedto be moving likedolls withweak batteries. I could feel pressurebuilding under my chin wheremy hood had been fastened around my face with a safety pin. By the time the Christ child had been wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed on Mary's lap, reclining so that His eyes closed bya gravitymechanism, I was feeling distinctly ill. Patrick Dizzini read from St. Luke.Danny McDade, as Melchior,recited "Shiny gold, the gift I bring / To honor Jesus, newborn King," knelt, and laid his box before the manger. I felt a flush of sweat on my forehead; all the hair follicles of my legs were tingling. Keith Wheeler,the only black boy in St. Vitus, spoke Balthazar's line: "Frankincense is mine to give, / That we may all through Jesus live." And then the spotlight shifted onto me and mymyrrh.I could feel something pressing into the soft tissue beneath my chin. Then slowly, as if some higher power were controlling mybody, I felt myself bending forward— and in a long arc that sparkled in the multicolored stage lights, I was sick. What I remember most is the sound from the audience, the simultaneous gasp of two hundred pairs of lungs inhaling. For hurt osborne rules the world 67 fiveseconds nobody moved; then Ursula Byatt, who smelled it, tossed the Christ child into the manger and ran off the stage holding her hand over her mouth. Over the rising murmur of the audience, Mrs. Carmody whisked the curtains shut so fast that the bottoms trailed behind in the air. I was led backstage, where I sat on a folding metal chair and threw up some more into an empty steam tray that somebody had brought from the cafeteria. As Mrs. Carmody wiped the vomit and lipstick off my mouth with a Kleenexfrom her purse, I heard Father Hardy's foghorn voice over the PAsystem:"We're sorry for the unfortunate delay,ladies and gentlemen, and I trust that our young Magus will be feelingbetter soon." When school started again in January, I was famous. When I walked in the halls of that old school, I could feel people's eyes on me. "Hey, King Vomit!" guys would shout at me on the playground or out the windows if no teacher was in the room. "HeyBarf-thazar!" Another kid made up a song, and he sang it wellinto January: "We three kings of Orient 'ore': / Bearing gifts, wepuke on the floor." What I soon realized was that I loved it: the hush when I walked into a room where people had been talking about me, the lowbuzz of kids whisperingbetween classes as theywent the other wayin the monitored traffic: "That's the guy who threw up in the Christmas pageant." But byFebruaryIwasjust a normal kid again, which I'dalways been and which had neverbothered...